At Sunday’s Super Bowl, football fans, Beyonce fans and people who were not fans of the blackout generated a record-shattering 24.1 million tweets. Fortunately, Twitter did a better job protecting its servers from surges than the Superdome did its lights.
Super Bowl XLVII surpassed the previous year’s total of 13.7 million tweets before Jacoby Jones’ spectacular 108 yard return of the second half kickoff. Jones’ electrifying play prompted 185,000 tweets per minute (TPM), the highest tweet-rate of any play in the game. The final whistle came in second place of all plays with 183,000 TPM. Yet, in this year’s “Twitter Bowl” tweets related to the actual football game came in dead last.
Beyonce’s halftime show dominated the twitterverse, bringing in 5.5 million tweets. Her performances of “Single Ladies” with Destiny’s Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams brought in a tweet rate of 252,000 TPM. Minutes later, as Beyonce took a bow center stage, tweets peaked for the entire Super Bowl event at 268,000 TPM.
The blackout took second place. While the 71,024 fans in attendance at the game sat in the dark, Twitter lit up with 231,500 TPM. With nothing happening on the field and the CBS producers seemingly unwilling to cut to commercials early, Twitter became the show. Comments, jokes, and even some advertisements poured in, entertaining audiences across the country.
Although Super Bowl XLVII didn’t beat the 31 million record number of tweets sent on election night, it demonstrated, once again, that Twitter has become a significant part of the experience for any major event.
According to CBS, the event also attracted a record breaking number of viewers. This year’s Super Bowl was the third most watched event in history, coming in behind . . . the Super Bowl, which holds the title for all three of the most watched televised events.
About Cameron Young
